Chicago and Cook County Housing for Health Strategic Plan ...

1 Chicago and Cook County Housing for Health Strategic Plan: 2017-2019. H2 Plan THIRD QUARTER REPORT. August to October, 2017. The Center for Housing and Health welcomes this opportunity to provide the Third Quarter Report on our community's H2 Plan implementation and benchmarks. Together with the other four lead organizations - All Chicago , CSH, Heartland Health Outreach, and the Suburban Alliance to End Homelessness - we are happy to report on the important progress that has been made during the third quarter of this year. This three-page report will focus on important highlights of our Plan implementation so far.

2 As a companion document to this report, an updated list of all 26 SMART Goals and benchmarks is attached, which provides much more detail on the implementation status of each of the Plan's objectives. Our three Plan Workgroups and 26 SMART Goal Subgroups, which are the principal vehicles for pursuing Plan implementation activities, have continued to meet during the third quarter of this year. The three Workgroups are identified below. The Subgroups have also continued to do their work on a regular basis, especially via email communications and phone-conferencing meetings.

3 Some of the Subgroups, such as the ones addressing the HMIS/CAPriCORN Project (Goal ), the flexible Rental subsidy Pool (Goal ), the MCO/Medicaid Contract Language (Goal ), and the Hospital Collaborative (Goal ), have also met a number of times in person to address various implementation challenges and activities. Data Sharing and Integration (Data Workgroup). Coordination and Integration for Services and Cross Training (Services Workgroup). Increasing Systems' Capacity for Housing and Services (Capacity Workgroup). Six Plan implementation highlights for this quarter follow below and are examples of the work being done.

4 We continue to welcome any of the staff of stakeholder agencies to support Plan implementation either by serving in one of the Workgroups or SMART Goal Subgroups. The benchmarks for each of the 26 SMART goals in the companion document to this report, which were developed by each of the Goal Subgroups, are guiding implementation activity of specific measures for success. The benchmarks capture the details of the broader objectives that are SMART goals. It also serves as a quarterly report card on how the benchmarks have been or are being met. 1. The H2 Plan Leadership Council is scheduled to meet on December 4.

5 At that meeting, Council members will dialogue on various aspects and highlights of Plan implementation activity, address major concerns, amend Plan SMART Goals as needed, and make major decisions on future implementation projects. Six highlights of our implementation work this quarter: Goal - By December 2017, establish at least one flexible rental subsidy pool funded through healthcare dollars to complement existing sources of Housing rental subsidies A partnership led by CSH received a Housing Plus grant award from the Chicago Community Trust to formally develop the program model, financing design and governance structure for a flexible rental subsidy pool in Cook County .

6 In addition to CSH, this partnership includes the Center for Housing and Health , Chicago Departments of Family and Support Services and Public Health , Cook County Health and Hospitals System, Illinois Public Health Institute, UI Health and Sage Consulting. The group met weekly during autumn to answer key questions related to the creation and operation of a pool with funds to provide permanent supportive Housing for frequent users of the Health care system. The advantage of the pool is that it would not have strict eligibility restrictions and complex enrollment process like many of the traditional sources of funding.

7 After the initiation and design phase is completed, a third party non-profit organization will be selected through a competitive process to administer the funds from this pool. It is very likely that public sources will support a flexible Housing pool and an announcement about investors and funding amount are expected before the end of the calendar year. Goal - By December 2017, end Veteran's homelessness in Chicago reaching a "functional zero" target and with at least 75% of housed residents accessing all needed Health services through the VA Health System or mainstream Health partners - The H2 Plan Capacity Workgroup proposed the following goal amendment: By December 2018, end Veteran's chronic homelessness in Chicago reaching a "functional zero" target for the population.

8 From January to June 2017, 538 veterans became homeless and 500. veterans were housed. As of July 4th, there were still 125 veterans experiencing chronic homelessness in Chicago . Efforts will continue throughout 2018 to end Veteran's homelessness with a special focus on those experiencing long-term homelessness (HUD. Chronic Homeless). There are a number of Housing and service resources in the Chicago Continuum of Care to house and serve households experiencing chronic homelessness. The Workgroup also agreed to eliminate the second half of the original goal for 2018 since presently there are limited resources to track Health services utilization.

9 Goal By December 2019, issue a report with criteria for optimizing placement into the fourteen types of supportive Housing programs through the Chicago Supportive Housing : Optimizing Placement ( ) Research Study This NIH - National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded project, through the Medical College of Wisconsin, continues to progress very well. The study hopes to answer the question of what types of supportive Housing and what service models are most effective for different residents. Leadership from the 24 supportive Housing providers in Chicago and Cook County that are participating in the study project gathered on October 16 to review the 2.

10 Latest preliminary results. To date, 889 supportive Housing residents have been enrolled in the study and overall the study has a 90% retention rate for the follow up interviews. The full presentation shared at the meeting is available to all stakeholders through the Center for Housing and Health . Goal - By September 2017, develop model contract language for HFS for Medicaid MCOs that will serve homeless populations in 2018 - By August 16, 2017, the goal working group, under the guidance of Judith Gethner, presented their recommendations for contract language to support highly vulnerable populations, including homeless individuals and families.